ACTA VETERINARIA ET ZOOTECHNICA SINICA ›› 2017, Vol. 48 ›› Issue (3): 474-482.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2017.03.010

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Effects of Dietary Nutrient Levels on the Development of Late Pregnant Ewes and Fetal

ZHANG Fan , CUI Kai, WANG Jie , DIAO Qi-yu*   

  1. （Key Laboratory of Feed Biotechnology of the Ministry of Agriculture, Feed Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081,China）
  • Received:2016-07-28 Online:2017-03-23 Published:2017-03-23

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Abstract:

This research aimed to study the effect of dietary nutrient levels on the development of late pregnancy ewes and embryos. Sixty-six primiparous and healthy Hu ewes with double lambs were provided with TMR diets ad libitum for the first 90 days of pregnancy, and the ewes ((44.45±2.2) kg body weight) were randomly divided into 3 groups with 11 replicates for each group and 2 ewes per pen. Each group was offered the dietary with the same concentrate supplement and forage but the different ratio of concentrate/forage for 5∶5, 4∶6 and 3∶7(DM basis), respectively from 90th days of pregnancy. Three ewes from each group were slaughtered on the 140th days of gestation for the slaughter experiment. The results showed as follows: 1) With the nutrient levels decreasing, the body weight of ewes had decreased trend (P<0.10). No significant changes were found in abdominal circumference during late pregnancy of ewes (P> 0.05), but the ewes’ body weight gain were significantly affected (P<0.05). 2) The dietary nutrient levels had no significant effect on the weight of pregnancy appendages, amniotic fluid and fetal in late pregnancy of ewes (P>0.05), but the fetal weight had the decreased trend (P<0.10) with the nutrient levels decreased. 3) Body size and organs weight of fetal in late pregnancy were not affected by the different nutrient levels (P>0.05), except the heart weight (P<0.05),and the body height, body length and the weight of liver, lung, stomach, small intestine had the decreased trend (P<0.10). The late pregnancy dietary nutrient levels resulting from concentrate supplement/forage could affect the ewes’ body weight gain, and the ewes would reduce their body weight gain to maintain the development of ewe pregnancy appendages, embryo body size, tissues and organs when it did not exceed the tolerance range of maternal, but which still impeded the normal development of embryo.

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